LUCY:

"Well, how are you, Lucy?"

The question was innocent enough. It was polite, it was sensible, it was expected. But it was a question with an answer nobody wanted to hear.

I shrugged. "I've been worried about Harry lately."

Professor Lupin was clearly caught off-guard by my answer, but I pretended not to notice and continued.

"He doesn't want me worrying about him. That much is obvious. But, well, I am. He had to see Cedric die. He had to see Voldemort return. And now, he's been slandered left and right, and I just know it's weighing on him. I can see it. I don't know why he feels like he has to try to keep it a secret. I'd help if he would let me." I sighed and glanced out the window. "I told him, by the way. I told him everything."

At this, Professor Lupin chuckled. "I was about to point out the irony there. I'm glad you told him, that's great."

I glanced at him sheepishly, pulling my legs to my chest and wrapping my arms around my knees. "I wasn't exactly planning on it, but, well, Umbridge kept harping on the Everlin bit, and he followed me when I ran away after getting upset, and, well, it just... all crashed down."

"And it went well, I'm guessing?"

"Better than I would have thought possible," I admitted in a soft voice. "It... was the first time I told someone who didn't already know. You being the exception, but..."

He grinned a bit. "Yes, well, dare I say I was already quite familiar with your predicament."

I nodded. "Exactly. Except for the Everlin part, of course."

"That I was not familiar with in the slightest." Professor Lupin looked at me curiously. I knew what he was thinking. I spared him the trouble of debating whether or not to ask.

"I haven't, er, contacted anyone yet," I said, glancing out the window again. The sky was overcast. I was a bit disappointed to see it; the blue sky often helped me remember that somewhere out in the world, there was a man who called me Sky Eyes. Assuming he... well, assuming he survived the attack.

"Would you like to?"

"Not yet." I blinked and tried to organize my thoughts. "I do think about my family, though. Quite a bit. Especially considering... everything, I suppose. It's just that, well, because of everything, I'm... not ready."

"That's alright." I glanced away from the window and at Professor Lupin. His expression was still searching. I wasn't quite sure what he hoped to find. "I may not be an expert in secret families, but I can imagine it all takes time to understand. And it is a rather delicate matter. It's alright to not be ready. I know you would want to do it right."

I nodded. "Exactly."

I glanced back out the window again, and lost myself in the rolling hills.

My arrival at Grimmauld Place was ushered in by the lovely screams of Walburga Black. On one hand, it was nice, because she was only alerted because of the way Tonks knocked something over in her rush to greet me. But on the other... that portrait could scream.

"Lucy! Hi!" I braced myself just in time for her enthusiastic hug. "Merlin, you've gotten even taller!"

"Really?" I asked as we pulled away. "I... hadn't realized."

Tonks patted the top of my head. "Bit by bit, child, bit by bit." She turned to Professor Lupin. "Mundungus just arrived two minutes before you, he said he could wait a bit before starting the meeting." She turned back to me. "You know your way around by now, yeah? You'll be in the same room as you were this summer. I'm your roommate this time, though."

"Or, actually," Professor Lupin said quickly, "you haven't seen Buckbeak in a while. Sirius! Have you fed Buckbeak yet?"

Sirius sauntered out of the dining room with a grin. "Well, well, well, Buckbeak's second-favorite person!"

"Third probably," I said. "You can't forget Hagrid."

He laughed. "Nice to have you back for a couple of nights, even if circumstances are less than ideal. Come on, let's go see our fine feathered friend."

The two of us made our way up to Buckbeak, who appeared quite delighted to see me.

"Hi Beaky," I said as he wrapped his neck around me in his best imitation of a hug. "How have you been?"

He made a low growling sound in his throat.

"Yeah, I guess I could say the same," I whispered.

"WHAT?" someone shrieked downstairs.

I must have jumped, because Sirius immediately went to pull the door shut. "They don't bother with the silencing charms now that you lot aren't running around trying to stick your noses into everything."

"Was that Mrs. Weasley?" I asked even though I knew the answer. I was embarrassed by how much I was shaking. I was being overly sensitive, it was just a little bit of shouting, I loved Mrs. Weasley, I knew she would never hurt me.

"You bet!" Sirius replied, reaching for a bag of food for Beaky. "I wonder what old Dung brought up this time. I'm almost certain he was the one who got that reaction from her."

I nodded again. "Does that happen often?"

"More often, now that everyone's in school. She worries, Molly does."

"Doesn't everyone nowadays?"

"Isn't that why you're here?"

"Touché," I said with a small sigh of resignation. "How did everyone hear about my, er, problem in the first place? I wasn't sure if I'd get a straight answer on the ride here."

"So you came to me? I'm honored."

I bit back a smile as I nodded. "You never beat around the bush with Harry over summer. I was hoping you might do the same with me."

"Your wish is my command! Dear Minnie — Professor McGonagall to you, in case you didn't know — wrote Remus a little over a week ago about your little problem, he decided it was worth a little risk to make sure you were alright."

"Why wouldn't I be?" I wondered aloud as I tossed Beaky a bit of food.

"Er, I'm not sure if you'd like the list to be alphabetical or ranked by relevance. It's quite a long one."

I laughed at the bluntness of his reply, glancing at him in surprise out of the corner of my eye.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the door opened to reveal Mundungus Fletcher, looking a bit annoyed.

"Well, nobody downstairs seemed to like my announcement, but I reckon you will, Sirius," he drawled. His gaze wandered over to me. "Your little speech was quite inspiring, by the way."

"My little-?" I started, but Dung was already talking again.

"Anyway, Sirius, that godson of yours is going to be leading a defense group with this one here. Had a whole group of kids in the Hog's Head this morning, it was quite impressive."

Sirius whirled to face me, grinning from ear to ear. "You could have mentioned that sooner! That's brilliant!"

"Oh, well," I stammered, "I was getting there." I turned to Dung. "You were there?"

"I was that witch Harry thought was Umbridge," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Insulting, that is, but it gets the job done."

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek for a second before speaking again. "Am I allowed to know why you were there in the first place? Did you somehow know about the meeting?"

He and Sirius exchanged a furtive look. I bit my cheek again.

"If not, it's alright," I said quickly. "I just, er, I'm worried about who else might have heard about the meeting."

Sirius sighed. "We didn't know about it, this is news to me. Great news, though!"

I nodded. "Alright."

"Order business," Mundungus said, leaning against the doorframe. "You'll understand soon enough, once you join."

"The sooner the better," I remarked. Buckbeak growled impatiently behind me, so I turned around and tossed him another piece of food while Mundungus told Sirius a couple more details of the meeting before saying he was going to head downstairs to see what was for dinner.

"Well, Lucy." I turned as Sirius grinned halfheartedly. "As I was saying before Dung entered, there's nothing wrong with having a hard time. You don't have to pretend it hasn't been hard. I doubt you'd be fooling anyone anyway."

"Not Harry, that's for sure," I muttered.

Sirius laughed. "I could have told you that much. You mean a lot to him."

Hermione's words surged to the forefront of my mind. "It was like someone had sucked the light out of him, when you were taken away."

"I'm not surprised he's been concerned," Sirius continued, tossing the empty bag onto a growing pile in the corner. "The past few months have been far from ideal, to put it lightly."

"For what it's worth, I worry about him plenty, too," I said softly.

"I'm not surprised by that either. Worry is unfortunately — or fortunately, perhaps — a two-way street when you care about someone and that someone cares about you."

I snorted. "Feel free to mention that to Harry sometime. He's under the impression that by not telling me how he really feels about anything, he's making me worry less, when in reality it's really just making me worry more."

Sirius chuckled. "You're far from the first person to feel this way. Just ask Remus sometime. Have you tried mentioning it to Harry? I know he's a bit thick, but he means well."

"I know he does," I mumbled. "That's why I'm scared to bring this up directly. Assuming I actually got through to him, I wouldn't want him feeling bad about any of this. I know he just wants to help, but I... want to help, too. He hasn't exactly had an easy time of it lately, either."

"It's a mess," Sirius agreed with a shrug. "Life is tough right now, there's no denying it. But we're tougher, aren't we?"

"I'd like to think so."

"Me too. Now come on, Molly's cooking smells wonderful as always. Just, er, don't mention the Hog's Head. And try to ignore Mundungus. She might be in a bit of a foul mood."

Mrs. Weasley was certainly happy to see me, but I understood what Sirius meant — hearing about what happened at the Hog's Head had sent her into a bit of a nervous frenzy. I wasn't terribly surprised given her strong opposition to any of us being involved in Order meetings over summer. I heeded the advice Sirius had given and steered clear of anything that might remind her of the meeting. But the air was still tense over the table, and I knew I was a large part of the reason why. I wasn't supposed to be there. I was supposed to be alright. But I wasn't. Just the same, the meal passed without any mention of the Hog's Head or DADA or anything of the sort, and after helping Mrs. Weasley clean the kitchen, I headed up to the room I would be sharing with Tonks.

While Tonks was in the shower and I was emptying the contents of my backpack onto my bed, Mrs. Weasley tapped on my doorframe.

"Lucy, darling?"

I glanced up. I recognized immediately the concerned furrow of her eyebrows and the uncertain smile that didn't reach her eyes. Something was troubling her.

I offered what semblance of a smile I could, though I knew it wasn't much. It was as if my face had forgotten how it felt. It was foreign. "Is everything alright, Mrs. Weasley?"

She shifted a bit uncomfortably, searching for words. "I just... wanted to talk to you."

I nodded and set my backpack down to show I was listening.

Still, she struggled a bit. "Lucy, I... I know it's not truly my place, seeing as I'm not your mother, but I just wanted to talk about what you're planning on doing with Harry. With the... secret group."

I bit my lip and nodded, heart racing as I realized what she was about to ask. Don't cry, Lucy, don't cry, Lucy, don't cry, Lucy...

"I know you all feel, very strongly, that this is the right thing to do, but, well, I'm not sure if you've all realized yet just how much is at stake here. With Dolores Umbridge at the helm, you could possibly be punished, or expelled, or even worse."

I instinctively flexed my hand at the mention of Umbridge, at the mention of punishment, the one into which I must not tell lies was carved. If anyone at Grimmauld had noticed the scar, they hadn't said anything. To be fair, I had plenty of other scars to notice instead. But none hurt quite as much as that one, save maybe the bite mark on my abdomen.

"I just don't want to see your futures ruined because you wanted to join a fight that really shouldn't be yours in the first place. D-Does that make any sense, dear?"

I managed a tiny nod and swallowed my tears away as best I could. Words I could have said ricocheted around my brain.

This IS my fight. My mum the Auror would have wanted me to lead this group. Cedric would have wanted me to help however I could, the way he would have if he had been given the chance, if he hadn't been taken away too soon. Some things in the world are worth the fight, like love and loss and love in spite of loss, regardless of consequences.

I don't have a future anyway.

Words I could have said ricocheted around my brain. But Mrs. Weasley meant so well. I swallowed a second time and tried to express this all, stammering, "It's- it's just-"

I tried to swallow again, but the lump in my throat had swollen, and a tear escaped, and it was over.

Mrs. Weasley crossed the room and wrapped me in a hug unlike any I could remember. I hugged her back, the magnitude of all that had happened striking me anew.

Mum was gone, Dad was gone. But Mrs. Weasley wasn't. Mr. Weasley wasn't. Professor McGonagall wasn't. Professor Lupin wasn't.

Cedric was gone. But Harry wasn't. Hermione wasn't. Ron wasn't. George wasn't. Fred wasn't. Ginny wasn't. Henry wasn't. And... I wasn't.

So much had been lost, but there was so much still that didn't need to be.

And that was worth the fight.